Volunteer

JOIN US! Its Volunteers week every week at the EBFC and every single volunteer makes a huge impact helping to cook, prep, deliver meals, collect food donations, compost, recycle, clean, care and smile from our kitchen on 24 Baker Street, BN1 4JN. We would love you to join us in helping support those who need delivered daily fresh healthy nutritious meals the most whilst also helping to save free fresh surplus food to cook with and share with other local community groups.

If you would like to volunteer please see our opening and activity times below:

• Monday midday til 6pm & Wednesday 10am til 3pm.

Kitchen prep, cook and food donation collection/drop off days.

• 9.30 am til 3pm on Tuesday and Thursday.

Kitchen prep & cook. Delivery across Brighton & Hove, all our meals are put together for dispatch and delivery for 1.3opm collection from 24 Baker Street, BN1 4JN.

Volunteer car delivery drivers, cyclists and walkers, kitchen and admin help are all needed for our ever evolving rota. A few hours a day, week or month are huge to a small local organisation like ours. All volunteers have free meals, food and bus fares and delivery drivers petrol money. 

If you would like to volunteer please email: janet@eastbrightonfoodcoop.uk or contact via Facebook messenger, we would love you to join the team : )… or pop by our kitchen on 24 Baker Street for a cup of tea and chat to see us in action.

Support

Thank you to Bardsleys Fish and Chip shop, our neighbours on Baker Street, who raised over £200 for EBFC in their Easter Raffle this year! Top prize free Fish and Chip Supper with Wine and the lovely Bev made some wonderful Easter cakes for runner up prizes. EBFC were out helping sell raffle tickets for badges at Whitehawk FC, where artist David Shrigley was also supporting The Hawks as part of Brighton Fringe Festival and the local East Central Brighton Primary Care Network were talking local fans blood pressure while they were all in a good mood.

 

Infinity have stepped in again to support EBFC, providing funds for a van! Bought from a local in Whitehawk. Our Blue diesel and has been in non stop use since we got the keys!

A BIG THANK YOU to everyone who donated to our Crowdfunder, especially to the wonderful workers at Infinity Foods Wholesale Workers Co-operative for their fantastic £2,500 donation towards our Citywide Meals on Wheels Crowdfunder and to everyone who donated to our Crowdfunder! This local brilliant natural and organic food workers co-operative have been quietly supporting the EBFC for the last 3 years with the Infinity Co-op members voting to donate to the EBFC each Christmas since 2020. The first time we received a donation from them it was a complete surprise. Infinity Foods Wholesale’s support was and is magical. Check them out https://www.infinityfoodswholesale.coop/

Our Community Meals on Wheels Service is an essential lifeline. Over 87.5% of the people we deliver to said their health would get worse without this service. 300,000 + fresh nutritious meals have been made and delivered across the city of Brighton & Hove by our amazing EBFC volunteer team since March 2020.

 

Work in progress on essential exterior repairs carried by the wonderful Edward Seagull with some life saving match-funding from The School of Social Entrepreneurs. The SSE have been instrumental in keeping our work going through 2024. 

Thank you Brighton & Hove Food Partnership for this wonderful interview with our Tuesday EBFC Volunteer Team https://bhfood.org.uk/eight-reasons-to-volunteer-for-food-projects-in-2023/ 

EBFC love to hear from anyone who would like to volunteer with us and if unable to volunteer, donations of money, food, kitchen equipment or anything you feel we might be able to put to good use are very welcome.

Donate

Every penny goes towards keeping our community citywide fresh nutritious meals on wheels service going, essential equipment, essential repairs, hosting wellbeing workshops & cookery classes at our HQ on 24 Baker Street, BN1 4JN.

If you would like to make a donation for someone to receive a fresh nutritious meal or meals please see our bank details below.

£4 will pay for 1 fresh healthy nutritious meal with fruit to be cooked and delivered

£30 will pay for 1 weeks fresh healthy nutritious meals to be cooked and delivered

£120 will pay for 1 months fresh healthy nutritious meals to be cooked and delivered

East Brighton Food CIC Account number 38650998 sort code 23-05-80

Thank you for your support, no matter how big or small, your donation is hugely appreciated

Community

Lock-down began and we were delivering meals by Monday 30^th March and by the end of that week provided 200 hot cooked meals for people as well as food parcels and fresh fruit and vegetables. By the middle of May 2020 we were providing over 1000 meals a week, after a year this grew to 8,000+ meals per month, it settled down to 4,000+ a month, to mostly single, elderly or disabled people who were unable to cook their own meals due to ill health, infirmity and financial hardship. Our Community Meals on Wheels Service is an essential lifeline. Over 87.5% of the people we deliver to said their health would get worse without this service. Over 300,000 + fresh nutritious meals have been made and delivered across the city of Brighton & Hove by our volunteer team since March 2020. 

 

Our community of volunteers and supporters have been tremendous, from individuals to local businesses, schools and other charity and community organisations.

EBFC officially became a Gold Champion Community Project, recognised by the Mayor of Brighton & Hove for our work in supporting our community during the Covid-19 pandemic. Bryan Coyle, EBFC founder and driving force, with his now not so little assistant Patrick were more than happy to accept the Mayor’s Gold Certificate on behalf of all our wonderful volunteers and supporters. That was back in May 2020, we’ve had numerous National Awards since then, with our most recent being a UK Top 5 Social Enterprise in 2024, one of the UK Top 100 Social Enterprises in 2023 and 2022 so this is our third consecutive year listing in the Top 100 Social Enterprises in the UK. Brighton & Hove have more Social Enterprises registered here than any other place in the country so it’s a great honour for the EBFC and everyone who has worked tirelessly over the last 3 years to have their work and achievements recognised at a national level.

We became an official Community Interest Company in July 2020

This is a neighbourhood with 4 food banks and the highest number of families accessing Children’s Centre food banks in this city.  Social isolation and access to food was always going to hit hardest here and we are cooking! 

The Crew Club were one of the first to step right up and offer support to the EBFC back in May 2019 and also set up the East Brighton Covid-19 Support Fund that paid for all our food, catering equipment as well as offering invaluable advice. Thank you Darren and all at the Crew.

We must give a very big thank you to Roedean School for their fabulous help, donating food and the use of their freezers and storage, offering incredibly practical help. Thank you.

A £10,000 funding bid was awarded to the EBFC from The National Lottery Community Fund in 2021, thank you National Lottery, we will be applying again!

East Brighton Food Co-op was initially funded by Nesta and the Dunhill Medical Trust’s Social Movements for Health.

A pilot programme supporting emerging social movements to grow their influence and impact on health and care.

https://www.nesta.org.uk/project/social-movements-health/

The Causewayed Social Movement for Health is also a Nesta sponsored movement, led by East Brighton residents fighting for improved primary care and challenging health inequalities.

You can follow Causewayed on Twitter.

UnLtd awarded, our founder, Bryan Coyle a Social Entrepeneur Grant to help him continue his work.